A foretaste of Bal Thackeray’s legacy

The paradoxical conduct of the Maharashtra police over a period of forty-eight hours following the death of Bal Thackeray must bewilder even the most hardened cynic. On Sunday, its performance was nothing if not exemplary. The force ensured peace and order during his funeral procession and later at his cremation at Shivaji Park. Both had witnessed an unprecedented turn- out of mourners. But thanks to the cooperation extended to it by the Shiv Sena leaders, there was no untoward incident either in Mumbai or in those parts of the state where the Sena calls the shots.

By the time the funeral ended, the police force deserved every accolade showered on it. The fact that the rest of the metropolis wore a deserted look appeared not to be of much significance to the seasoned commentators who held forth on television channels. The emotion of the moment – that ran all the way in favour of the Sena patriarch – got the better of their professional judgement.

But ordinary folk did not miss the cruel irony. They recalled the eerie silence that had often descended on Mumbai whenever the fear of the Sena’s ghoulish behaviour forced citizens to remain indoors. It is precisely this entirely apposite thought that 21-year old Shaheen Dhada, a resident of Palghar, expressed in her comment on Facebook, a comment endorsed by Rini Srinivasan, a close friend of hers, also aged twenty-one.

True to style, local Sainiks asked her to tender an apology for insulting their leader. She did so with much reluctance by posting it on Facebook. That should have ended the matter. But, encouraged by the success of their habitual, strong-arm tactics, the Sainiks vandalised an orthopaedic hospital run by Shaheen’s uncle and roughed up the staff and patients.

This is when the seamier side of the Maharashtra police was exposed to broad daylight. They picked up Shaheen and Rina, detained them all night, formally arrested them the next morning and charged them for ‘hurting religious sentiments.’ The charge was later reduced and the two young girls were given bail on a surety of Rs. 15000 each.

The nation-wide outrage the incident generated goaded the state government to order an inquiry which, it said, had to be completed within two days. Nine arrests have been made so far and police claim that some more are likely to be made soon. Still, the initial action taken against the two young women will continue to rankle.

What such conduct of the Maharashtra police, and indeed of the state government, reveals is their supine response to a Sena threat to create mayhem. In his long public life, Thackeray made one inflammatory speech after another that blatantly violated the laws of the land. Not once was he indicted for his rants against south Indians, Muslims, Biharis and media and arts personalities who were critical of him. The fear of earning Thackeray’s wrath in case the law was allowed to take its course paralysed the reflexes of the authorities. Yet they acted with unseemly alacrity after Shaheen posted her comment.

Thackeray would of course have been proud of the Sainiks who intimated her: they were carrying on the patriarch’s legacy with tactics he would doubtless have approved.

It is this very same supine disposition of the authorities that will compel them to accept the Shiv Sena’s growing demand to erect a memorial to Bal Thackeray at Shivaji Park. For decades this public space nurtured the nation’s finest cricketing talents. It was here that political parties of all ideological stripes also held their rallies.

Local residents now fear that these traditions – upheld by generations of Mumbaikars of all social and political persuasions – would be eclipsed and that this crucible of a pluralistic culture would turn into a place of pilgrimage to promote a single individual’s personality cult. Is it merely a coincidence that Bhaskar Jadhav, Maharshtra’s NCP minister of urban development, who seems to be eager to clear the proposal for the memorial, is a former Sainik? There is no end to the galling paradoxes in Maharashtra’s public life where what is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander.